Validating the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Evaluation Framework of Science and Technology Parks in Khorasan Razavi Province

Abstract

This study mainly aims to validate the framework of the entrepreneurship ecosystem of science and technology parks in Iran. The purpose of this study is to improve the infrastructures and achieve the vision of the science and technology parks, managing and directing the interactions among different factors involved for creating sustainable value, entrepreneurial opportunities and business scalability. In terms of purpose, the current research is applied and has a descriptive approach of the correlational type, with a qualitative strategy of a sequential exploratory type. The statistical sample in the qualitative section was purposeful and theoretical in the form of interviews with 15 experts in the field of entrepreneurship and science and technology parks in Iran. In the quantitative part, 181 managers of parks and technology units, and other key people involved in this ecosystem participated. The reliability and validity of the researcher-made questionnaire was measured using Cronbach’s alpha and the average extracted variance were above 0.845 and 0.604, respectively. The findings show that causal factors (characteristics of local structures, entrepreneurship policies and local entrepreneurship indicators), contextual factors (financial, human resources, physical and intangible infrastructure, capacity building, promotion, enablers) and intervening factors (adaptability, tension removal, resilience) predict 0.487, 0.541 and 0.634 of changes in strategies (interactions within and outside the ecosystem), respectively. The axial category predicts 0.798 of changes in strategies. Strategies also predict 0.782 of changes in outcomes (wealth creation, workforce, and businesses). The science and technology parks are suggested to consider the aforementioned

Keywords

• entrepreneurship ecosystem
• evaluation framework
• validation
• science and technology parks
• strategy
• outcome